Travellers will take a rocket instead of a long-haul flight if SpaceX has its way

SpaceX will, in the next decade, launch rockets for international travel. With this a trip from London to Shanghai, for instance, would take as little as a half an hour, and cost somewhere around what a business-class trip the same distance would. “It’s space travel for earthlings,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s COO, TED 2018 in Vancouver.

SpaceX’s BFR, which Shotwell says stands for “Big … Falcon Rocket”, will be the vehicle to make these trips. “If we can run trips that last a half hour or an hour, we can run dozens of them a day,” she says. “A long-haul aircraft can only do one.” The rockets will be able to hold around 100 people.

This travel is closer home than SpaceX CEO’s, Elon Musk’s, plans to fly to Mars. He has said that the company will start testing space travel as early as next year.

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